“Insanely tight” supply/demand balances notwithstanding, weather dominated natural gas forward markets for the Oct. 29-Nov. 4 period. With an extremely mild forecast for the next two weeks at least, prices for December and the remaining months of winter fell sharply. Smaller, single-digit losses were seen further out the curve.

The steep declines mimicked the slide along the Nymex futures curve, where the Henry Hub December contract slid around 25 cents to $3.046, and the balance of winter lost 23.0 cents to reach around $3.10. Losses were less severe for the summer and beyond, with declines of less than a nickel.

In the past week alone, the long-range outlook has shaved considerable demand from the forecast, and the latest model runs were no exception. Bespoke Weather...